How Data from the Institute of Museum and Library Services Describe Ways Public Libraries Provide Health and Wellness Information Services

OBJECTIVE: This article describes how funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) provided resources for state and public libraries to deliver health information to their patrons. METHODS: Three IMLS publicly available data collections were used: State Library Administrative Agency Survey data; State Program Report system; and the Awarded Grants Search portal. Data about health related projects from these two administrative data sources for 36 competitive award projects since 2015 and 143 projects supported via the formula-funded Grants to States Program between 2015-2018 (inclusive) were included. Descriptive statistics about projects with a health and wellness focus were presented within the context of others supported by Grants to States. RESULTS: Competitive projects supported public libraries’ health resources and built librarians’ skills to facilitate patron access to health information. The Grants to States program supported 143 projects associated with health undertaken by 29 states plus Puerto Rico between 2015 and 2018. The IMLS $14.4 million investment during this period leveraged an additional $5 million from state and local sources to support health information projects in public libraries. Finally, data from the State Library Administrative Agency Survey showed that in addition to projects that relied on IMLS Grants to States funds, 29 state libraries provided program assistance in health literacy to the public libraries in their jurisdictions in 2018. CONCLUSIONS: The findings point to a need to determine whether there are ways to collect additional information via IMLS’s data systems to further support state and public libraries in meeting patron health information needs. The lessons learned in the analyses in this article offer useful food-for-thought about how IMLS might work with our data stakeholders to continue to modify each of these data sources to describe the role of libraries in an increasingly complex information landscape.